Read Online Darkhouse (Experiment in Terror #1) by Karina Halle - Free Book Online Page B

to her on some level. She was only about thirty and was known to trade drunken late-night stories with me (or should I say I just listened to them as I didn’t really go out like she did). But there were days like today when her skinny face became one of authority.
    “I’m fine.” I smiled, obviously not wanting to get into it.
    “Come with me,” she said brusquely, and beckoned me to follow her into an empty office.
    With my heart pounding irregularly, I did as she asked and she closed the door behind her. She had this concerned look on her face that made me feel on edge. I had a flashback to a doctor-patient scenario.
    “What’s up?” I asked as casually as I could. In the back of my head I knew the phones were ringing. Normally my bathroom breaks weren’t this long.
    “You’re not a very good liar, Perry,” she stated. That was kind of insulting. I totally thought I was.
    I gave a half-hearted chuckle. “I don’t know what you—”
    “I think you need to go home,” she said simply.
    “Go home?”
    She sighed. It wasn’t exasperated or annoyed but more along the lines that she didn’t want to get into explaining herself. She was going to have to, though, especially with the quizzical look I was giving her.
    “Remember a few weeks ago?” she asked, her voice taking on a warning tone. “You had that little attack of yours?”
    Ah, right. No wonder she was handling me with such care.
    “I’m fine,” I said again, trying to smile brighter.
    “Look, it’s all right. I know I’m your boss and you can’t talk to me about stuff, but if you need to, I’m here for you. The last few weeks, I’ve noticed you’ve been a lot different.”
    “Last few weeks?” I repeated.
    She folded her arms and leaned against the door. “Yes. You’ve been sloppier, more curt with clients. You’re looking more tired, like you haven’t been sleeping at all. I don’t know what’s wrong, and I don’t expect you to tell me, but I just want you to know that you can if you want to. I’m not going to judge. I’d rather just know.”
    I felt pretty embarrassed.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I mean, no offense, but I hadn’t noticed I was acting any different then.”
    “But you notice now?”
    “I did have a rough weekend,” I said honestly.
    She stared at me for a few beats. During that time my mind went on a paranoid rampage. OK, so yes, a few weeks ago I had a panic attack. I screwed up a call between some old bag on the phone and the person she wanted to speak to. She raised such a fuss about me (no seriously, that bitch was cruel) that I ended up having a panic attack that a lot of people in the office, unfortunately, bared witness to. I just blamed it on PMS or something. I guess that hadn’t really fooled Frida.
    But other than that, and a few other instances before, I was fine.
    “How about you go home and get some rest. Come back tomorrow if you feel better,” she suggested gently.
    It would have been a dream come true. My boss was finally giving me a day off and for no real reason, to boot. Except the way it was actually going down was completely humiliating. I felt my pride bristle along my back like porcupine spines.
    “I’ll be fine,” I countered.
    She gave me a sympathetic smile and said something rather chilling, “You won’t. And that’s all right. Really, Perry, life gets hard sometimes. We all know it. And we all know you can’t deal with it while you’re here at work. So, coming from a friend, really, just go home and sort yourself out. Come back full of pep and beans. Just...deal with whatever you need to deal with.”
    There was more to it than that, I knew that much.
    “And if you weren’t my friend?”
    “You’re projecting a bad image for the company right now,” she answered bluntly. “Since that incident a few weeks ago, people have been a bit, um, concerned about you. I think it would be best for you, and everyone else, if you could do your job